Next week, the events for the 2018 Filter Photo Festival get underway, and along with the Portfolio Reviews, lectures, workshops, and artist talks, are a number of wonderful exhibitions. Today we feature the Re/member/construct Exhibition, juried by Lisa Volpe, Associate Curator, Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  The exhibition runs through October 27, 2018 with a reception on September 28 | 6 pm – 9 pm at the Filter Space 1821 W. Hubbard St., Ste. 207, in Chicago.

For nearly six months now, Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have been staging weekly demonstrations at points along the border between Gaza and Israel—protests they call the “Great March of Return,” which demands that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their lands in present-day Israel. Every Friday since March 30, large and small groups of protesters approach the border fence under the watch of Israeli soldiers on the other side. Every Friday, Palestinians set tires ablaze, fly Palestinian flags, and chant slogans. Sometimes they throw rocks, fly incendiary kites to set fields ablaze, or lob tear-gas canisters over the fence—and sometimes they attack the fence itself with bolt cutters and hatchets. Every Friday, Israeli soldiers respond with tear gas and rubber bullets—sometimes live ammunition—to disperse, warn, injure, or kill those who get too close to the fence. United Press International quotes the Gaza Health Ministry as saying that “more than 178 Palestinians have been killed since the protests began March 30.”

Arlene Gottfried (1950–2017) was a paradox of the best kind: the infinitely shy artist who can blow the roof off the joint while singing gospel, or approach any person in order to take their photo. Hailing from Brooklyn, Gottfried spent her childhood in Coney Island where all kinds of characters loomed near and far.

In the land from where the eyes can see the Israeli border, Palestinian farmers try to make their living producing agricultural goods such as strawberries, oranges, grapefruits, olives, etc. The war in 2014, that lasted almost two months, has left the majority of Gazan farmers living in the buffer zones with their houses demolished or their land bulldozed – in worst cases, both. In 50 days long war that Israel called “Operation Protective Edge” more than 2,200 Palestinian lives were lost and about 17,200 homes totally destroyed, after 20,000 tons of explosive had been dropped on Gaza.

Adam shoots with the Leica M240, he enjoys the camera’s simplicity. “From an M6, to M9, to M240 and next an M10-P I never need waste time re-learning the tool”. The screen has proven to be incredibly practical on the job, he says that when he can make someone look better than they see themselves, something magical happens. The subject opens up and, as much as he loves film, the immediacy of digital has helped him a lot. Many of his craftsmen subjects know Leica and think of it as a well-built tool. Often, they even have their own family stories that relate to Leica. Tools are important to people who build things, though craftsmen value tools, they don’t get overwhelmed by them.

a guest blog post by Maggie Steber

But despite the ability to perform 5 trillion operations a second, the iPhone still can’t do something your dedicated ILP camera can, namely, collect as much light. And when it comes to photography, true exposure (i.e. the total number of photons captured) is directly related to image quality.